The US south-west continued to endure sweltering weather as the first heatwave of the year brought temperatures of 110F (43C) and higher from California to Arizona.
The temperatures are higher than normal for this time of year, with the official start of summer still two weeks away.
Roughly half of Arizona and Nevada were under an excessive heat alert, which the National Weather Service extended until Friday evening. The alert was extended through Saturday in Las Vegas, where it has never been hotter this early in the year.
“High temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees above normal can be expected, with record high temperatures likely for some sites through Friday,” the weather service in Las Vegas said. Temperatures will slowly retreat over the weekend, but will remain above normal into early next week.
The National Weather Service in Phoenix, where the new record high of 113F (45C) on Thursday leapfrogged the old mark of 111F (44C) set in 2016, called the conditions “dangerously hot”.
There were no immediate reports of any heat-related deaths or serious injuries.
But at a campaign rally for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, in Phoenix, 11 people fell ill from heat exhaustion by late afternoon and were taken to the hospital, where they were treated and released, fire officials said.
And in Las Vegas, with a new record of 111F (44C) on Thursday that also matched the earliest time of year the high reached at least 110F, the Clark county fire department said it had responded to at least 12 calls for heat exposure since midnight on Wednesday. Nine of those calls resulted in a patient needing hospital treatment.
Several other areas of Arizona, California and Nevada also broke records by a degree or two, including Death Valley national park with a record high for the date of 122F, topping 121F dating to 1996 in the desert that sits 194ft (59 meters) below sea level near the California-Nevada line. Records there date to 1911.
California’s interior continued to face grueling temperatures into Friday. Fresno in the Central valley and Redding in the state’s far north expected to see highs of 103F (39C) on Friday. In Fresno, officials briefly postponed a graduation ceremony this week due to the heat risk, and the public health department has warned people with health conditions to take precautions.
“Every heat-related death can be prevented,” Dr Rais Vohra, Fresno county’s interim health officer, told KVPR.
Advocates have warned that unhoused people in particular face increased risks from the extreme heat and lack of cooling centers. In Chico, which saw temperatures of 104F this week, a local non-profit was handing out ice and water to people on the street.
“We have an ageing homeless population here and they are so much more susceptible to heat stressors,” said Lauren Kennedy, the program coordinator of Safe Space, which operates shelters during extreme weather in Chico. The non-profit relies on churches and other groups to provide temporary shelter, but does not have spaces available this week.
“We’re really short on spaces that people can gather. Not just homeless people but anybody,” Kennedy said.
The heat has arrived weeks earlier than usual even in places farther to the north at higher elevations – areas typically a dozen degrees cooler. That includes Reno, where the normal high of 81F (27C) for this time of year soared to a record 98F (37C) on Thursday. Records there date to 1888.
The National Weather Service forecast mild cooling across the region this weekend, but only by a few degrees. In central and southern Arizona, that will still mean triple-digit highs, even up to 110F.
On Thursday in Phoenix, the unseasonably hot weather did not prevent Oscar Tomasio of Cleveland, Ohio, from proposing to his girlfriend, Megan McCracken, as they attempted to hike to the peak of a trail on Camelback Mountain with three liters of water each in tow.
“It was a grueling hike,” Tomasio told the Associated Press. “It was extra hot, so we started extra early.”
“The views were beautiful. We didn’t make it quite to the top because she was a little nervous with the heat,” he said. “So I proposed to her when the sun rose.”
McCracken confirmed they had planned a sunrise hike and awoke about 5am in an effort to beat the heat and an impending closure of the trail.
“Probably not early enough,” she said.
